History
John Adams, the first President to live in the White House, used this room as a laundry room; at that time it was said to have been filled with "Tubs, Buckets, and a variety of Lumber." During the 1850-1853 presidency of Millard Fillmore, Congressional funding was requested to establish this library. Though the library was established during the Fillmore presidency, the driving force behind the room was actually the First Lady, Abigail Powers Fillmore. The room saw only slight modifications until the Truman reconstruction in 1952, when the room was paneled in salvaged timbers from the White House's former timber frame. These were left unpainted until the administration of John F. Kennedy, when decorator Stéphane Boudin recreated the room as a painted Federal style parlor.
To stand out an unusual lighthouse clock made by Simon Willard to commemorate the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States in 1824-25. A likeness of Lafayette appears in a medallion on its base.
The Library provides access to a men's lounge and restroom.
Read more about this topic: Library (White House)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)